The Last Dalliance
by Featherveil
Summary: After the Battle of Dagorlad, the Siege of Barad-Dur lasted seven years, remember? So many men and elves so lonely in Mordor... A series of prose poems about some such. The most beautiful slash I ever wrote.
1. Imagine

His tongue is in my mouth. I listen to an inner music, I move on him, I touch him. He opens the clasps of my armour. It falls on my toes and I don't care. 

The siege has been long. Barad-Dur is strong. 

His kiss is full of passion, but I know why he keeps his eyes closed. He is thinking about his wife. 

Perhaps I should never have agreed to share a tent with Celeborn. Elbereth, how I was innocent! 

But I don't want to stop. I can deny him nothing. He pushes me down to the bed, his bed, the softer one. Now he kisses my neck. My fingers are tangled in his hair, I feel clumsy. But that's far from all I feel. I burn. 

My eyes remain wide open. 

Soon we are naked. He enters me. 

Long have you fought for this, my love! You have held siege around me, and I have known no peace for five years. Finally my gates are opened for you to enter. I am humble under you. I burn, I fall, I crumble in your hands. I surrender! 

Celeborn, my fair lord, open your eyes! Do not fall asleep, stop dreaming! Forget all but this moment. Hold me. 

I burn. 

He opens his eyes, he smiles, he kisses me. Too tenderly, as if a butterfly had brushed my lips. 

I climb on his body, I wrestle him. I am eager, I am hard, I am merciless. My hands are rough, my lips are hungry, and I take him. I do not ask if he wants it, but his hands tell me all I need to know. 

He knows now who he is with. I am not Galadriel and I will not act her for him. I am myself, and I love him. I am Elrond. 

*****  
Note: I dedicate this story to a nice young man I have a hopeless crush on. T, this is for you, although I hope you never read it...  
(T is no-one at fanfiction.net, as far as I know) 


	2. When you wish upon a star

How I long for you! I house a secret passion inside the deepest chambers of my heart. You are so pure, as far from my reach as the stars. Far as Eärendil. 

I look at you so near to me, walking, talking, dealing the grim business of war. In my minds eye I see you naked, taking a bath in the tent we share. You never notice how I stare... 

Is there nothing in your mind but maps and plans? Weapons and shields, legions and regiments, attacks and defences? 

Have you left all that is weak and tender in you back home, safe? Where do you keep it? In the heart of some fair maiden? At a fireside where your hounds sleep after a hunt? 

Have you extinguished it like a candle in the night? 

When shall I see you alight? 

Gil-Galad, my shining star. 

____________________

It is evening, the shadows fall. You are tired, I help you take off your armour. Suddenly your hand is heavy on my shoulder. 

You whisper my name. 

'Elendil.'  
I say nothing, I wait and I tremble.  
'You lost everything, and yet you built yourself a kingdom. I have never seen you without hope.'  
'Perhaps, if you had looked closer, you would have. On the battlefield, never. But when all is done and the armour undone, and the weight on my shoulders is heavier because it is not iron but memories, then you would have seen me without hope.'   
'Forgive me. I forgot you have lost more than a kingdom. Miranna.'  
'In that, at least, I have hope. I have hope to love again. Perhaps not to remarry, but to love.'  
'Already? Well, you humans have such few years. Even your kin. Still, the matters of love you have left home, and on the battlefield your hope gives courage to us all.'  
'But I have left nothing home! Here is everything, Gil-Galad, everything. My sons, my men, my battle. My enemy. And you.'  
I put my hand on your shoulder, we stand face to face. I look into your eyes. Still you do not understand, and your words surprise me. 

'Teach me to hope, Elendil.'  
You do not know what you say, but I see my chance and grab it. I embrace you, then I take your face in my hands. 

I kiss you gently. 

'You are my hope.'  
'Elendil!' There is fear in your voice, but no hatred, no disgust. So I kiss you again, and finally your mouth responds to my mouth. Oh, how sweet the taste of you! 

We undress in haste and explore each other's bodies with our hands. Then with our mouths. I take your manhood in my mouth, I bring you slowly into a gasping, sweating pleasure. I swallow your seed. I worship your body, and you whisper beautiful words into my hair. 

Suddenly I listen and in amazement I hear you offer yourself to me, and your gestures confirm the message. You are mine to take any way I please. I thank you in tears, I guide you into a position half standing over the bed of our love. I take you from behind, I shout out my fierce passion for you. I am yours, I am you and you are me, we are one. 

You are so beautiful. 

But we must save our strength, we must not waste all our passion tonight - we must ride it like a horse to battle tomorrow, our alliance fortified by this eerie binding, and for each other we shall be strong and do the work of war with an eager heart, and if death takes us, at least it takes us together, for I shall not part from your side, never more. 

***** 

This little bit is dedicated to C, who offered himself as a slave. He was rejected, and broken. This he shall never read, but I hope someday he shall live it with someone. Written by my friendly hand, by a hand that held his hand... 


	3. Triangle drama

Three of us in a tent. Too many, one too many. And I wish those two were not together all the time. Sometimes it seems they are each but half a man, the way one begins a sentence and the other finishes it. 

But of course you my love, you are no half, you are whole. If only I could have you alone... 

No, my heart, stay these foolish fancies! Do not conceive the death of a comrade in arms just because he happens to intrude on your privacy! I must not hope for the death of an ally. 

But I wish he would be away for a while. I wish you my love would not follow him everywhere. 

He may be your brother, but he is not your master. I cringe to see you obey him like a dog. Isildur, be wise, send your younger brother from you! Tell him you wish to be alone, go to some other tent, stay there all night. 

Leave Anarion here with me. He will be in good hands... 

Stop, my soul, forget now your fancies! There beside the table the brothers sit, immersed in a game of blacks-and-whites. A simple mortal game, that I am bored of playing, yet if only I could play with you... my knee brushing yours by accident... it would sustain me a week... 

Anarion, you are the sunshine on my fields. 

And Isildur is a cloud that comes between us! 

What now! He has lost, and he is angry! Children's play, he calls it, says his mind is not here, he needs to write some strategy for tomorrow, he will go to the council tent because you, his "foolish little brother" have used all his parchment writing a poem about Numenor. 

And finally he says:  
'Do not expect me back for supper. I feel like writing all night. I take my lembas and wine with me, see, no need to worry about me starving.' 

How long have I yearned for just such bitter words from his noble mouth! 

'Well, Anarion,' I say after he has gone, 'It seems your brother only likes to play when he wins.'  
'It's because he usually does beat me, in everything.'  
'But not, I think, in writing poems about Numenor.'  
Your eyes shine.  
'Would you like to read it?'  
'Indeed I would.'  


It is a pretty little piece, not a lament as I expected, but a fond remembrance of a carefree childhood. There is a refrain;  
"And your hills like a mother's bosom did cradle my dreams..."  
But in the last verse it has turned into:  
"And your vales like a maiden's lap they did cradle my dreams."  


'It is beautiful. You do have a talent.'  
'Really? You think so? You aren't just being nice?'  
'I'd never be as stupid as to "be nice" to you, Anarion! Come to think of it, I'm never nice or nasty to anyone. Petty feelings are against my nature and upbringing. For elves, it's always love or hate, friendship or enmity, and perhaps, for the Sindar, sometimes ignorance.'   


You pause in thought, and your brow wrinkled in concentration gives you a boyish appearance. 

'You are my friend, Glorfindel, but not Isildur's. Why?'  
'Your brother is a man of few friendships. It is not easy to get to know him. You are more open, at least when you are alone.'  
'I hope you would learn to like Isildur.'  
'Why?'  
'Because I like you.'  
'You do? I'm glad to hear that, for I love you, Anarion.'  
'...love or hate,' you quote my words, 'do you hate Isildur then?'  
'Not exactly. But I am jealous, for he alone has your love.'  
'He, my father, my wife and children, and my mother's memory. I love my family, who else would I love?'  
'Elves call friendship love, too.'  
'Then indeed I do love you, Glorfindel, and you have no need for jealousy. Can a man not have several friends? Gil-Galad is your friend, too.'  
'Several friends, perhaps, but only one the dearest.'  
'Would you be my dearest? What do you mean, what is that strange light in your eyes?'  
'Indeed I would be your dearest, and you would be my everything.' 

I reach out to touch your curly golden hair. The look on your face is like that of an innocent maiden who is about to realise the fullness of her womanhood, a maiden looking at her first admirer and suddenly realising that he will not be satisfied just to look at her, he wants to touch. 

You are married, and perhaps your wife once looked at you like that, but you never had an admirer of your own. And in the tears that suddenly fill your eyes I read another message: anywhere else you would not look twice at a male admirer, but here on the battlefield with no woman in sight, the thought is not so repulsive to you - indeed your flesh yearns for its satisfaction. And perhaps it helps that I with my golden plaits look a bit feminine. 

I undress you like I would undress my bride on my wedding night; with care, with ceremony, forcing myself not to hurry. 

Then I bestow my kisses all over your fair body, and I observe your desire grow and fill you, and you touch me, tentatively at first, then with passion, as you hear me whisper your name in lust. We caress each other as if the skin we touch were our own, as if we were but one being in the depths of loneliness caressing itself, rubbing its erect manhood in a hopeless lusting, yet enjoying itself for the moment - so much we are one, so well we know each other's bodies, so well, at last, at last, we fit together as I enter you and teach you a new game of love, and you repeat it to me and show you have learned perfectly, we are one, man and elf, one and yet more for we are not lonely. 

An later, when we lie spent upon a blanket, and the echo of our throbbing blood still hums in our ears, and we hold onto each other, we are one and we fall asleep in each other's arms. 

Isildur finds us there in the morning, and I am surprised that he is not angry. Then I look into his eyes and I know he neither has slept alone. There are no stains of ink in his fingers, no parchment in his pockets. 

***** 

This is dedicated to M, whom I desired and never had. He had golden curls and he would have been my everything. 


	4. Iron and Irony

Dwarf-friend they call me, when they mock me - and mock me they do, my own people, when they see me with you. 

'Isildur has lost his wits', I heard a healer whisper to another, 'He treats them like honoured guests, like an army, although they are barely a division in number.' 

Fools! Healers, what do they know of war? A dozen dwarves is worth a brigade of men, and a brigade of them is worth an army! 

Durin the Deathless, in your mithril mail, with your sword and axe you would slay a dragon all by yourself. Too bad Sauron has no dragons and what pitiful underlings he has stay cowardly behind the walls. Dragons we could deal with, you and I. Of all our leaders we are the ones most skilled with weapons, and you are my better. 

Elendil my father would be more dangerous if he did not waste so much time protecting the wounded. Anarion's body is still the same as when he was a youth, he has barely the muscle to bear his armour without stumbling. And all that ridiculous gold plate makes it heavier... that dandy! Glorfindel is another such, he may have slain a balrog sometime in the dawn of time, but now I think he wastes more time plaiting his hair than honing his skills with a blade - and such an old-fashioned sword at that, it is high time he bought a new one. 

And as to our elven commander, king high-and-mighty Gil-Galad, he is very skilled in avoiding the front line and leading from behind. That herald of his, Elrond, would not be too bad if only he took up a proper sword instead of that ridiculous spear of his - or should I say spears, as he breaks one every another month or so. And then we have Celeborn, Celeborn the diplomat, always talking and never saying anything worth saying. I wish he had brought his wife with him, at least the lady has some way of keeping him silent. Who knows, Galadriel might actually understand strategy... 

But I'm rambling to myself again, no better than Celeborn save that I have the decency not to disturb anyone else with my ponderings. 

I was thinking about you, and I should have kept to that thought, for it brings me joy instead of scorn, and joy is rare when camped in Mordor, while scorn can be found aplenty. Sometimes I feel the silent hill are holding siege to us, their shadows kill our mirth and darken our dreams. In this dark land we are forced to stay, our supply line like an umbilical cord connecting us to life, while we wait that this rocky womb would give birth to our victory. I wonder if the orcs are eating each other in that fortress, or if all the army Sauron now has consists of wraiths and spectres, shadows and nightmares, vampires and ravens. Certainly the stench that issues from that tower of night contains no wisp of smoke, no smell of life, just the cold vapours of death and decay. 

But I was thinking about you. I need great concentration for that nowadays, to turn my mind away from this barren land. 

I close my eyes. I wait for you in our meeting place, the council tent that is empty every night. I have managed to get some peace from my brother who still tags along after me like when we were kids. 

I imagine your body in my arms, your lips on mine. There is no nonsense about you, nothing weak, nothing fancy and elvish, no pretence, you are honest. That is what I like in you. I'm not sure if what we have is love, we never use the words of love that women so appreciate. It would be ridiculous to call you my love, beloved, beautiful. Instead I call you mine and you call me yours, and when we share a bed we share a fierce battle, wrestling each other for our pleasure, binding, forcing, using each other and whether I win or lose I enjoy it. 

I open my eyes as you enter the tent, or rather, to the sound of your axe dropping to the floor. I see you are drunk again, and you offer me some of that bitter dwarven draught that tastes like distilled anger. You are in no mood for talks, instead you use your most commanding tone to order me:  
'Off with your clothes, boy.' I hate the word "boy" and you only use it when you are drunk. I know you want me now to behave like a dwarf pleasure-lad, a young one learning the games of men, serving so that he in turn can be served when he is older, a natural enough arrangement in a society where there are twice as many men as women. 

I am offended as I prefer the times when we are equal, but as I am indeed the younger in years I obey, and I am glad that you have come into this tent instead of one of the "spearmen's tents", as your tribe calls the tents where the young soldiers sleep and do their pleasure-works. 

You take me from behind, painfully. You use my mouth, my hair, you stain me. But when you finally tire I am both roused and angered, and as you are drunk it is hardly difficult for me to force my way inside you. You curse me in dwarvish and I laugh, I conquer you. I am at the height of my strength and I take you several times, and finally I have you completely at my mercy as I torture you with tender touches, you are aroused and I hold your own hands away with one hand as I slowly massage you with the other. You beg me to let go, to take you in my mouth, anything to release you from this torture. Finally the pressure in your member releases itself and again you curse me. We have a wrestling match the kind we often have, but you are weakened and I end up seated on your chest. As the winner's right I demand you take me in your mouth and so my revenge is completed. 

'Call me boy, will you, grandfather?'  
You no longer can curse me as your mouth is in better use. 

No, this certainly is not love. This is war. And I rejoice in it. 

The shadow of Barad-dur is tall and dark, it hides the sunrise and moonrise from our view. Love, I think, has no place in Mordor. 

______________

Later I will see this is not entirely correct. Love has no place in my life in Mordor, but in others' it may bloom. But I do not envy them. Sunshine and flowers are for elves and dandies. You and I, Durin V, we are warriors body and soul. 

****** 

This I will dedicate to H, a friend who recently turned both our interests briefly towards S/M and other dark things, with no life-changing results but some strange thoughts and conversations. H alone of all who have received these dedications may actually read the story, someday. To you, then, my unprejudiced, dear, if not dearest, friend. 


End file.
